


but take me anywhere you like

by zenstrike



Series: you’re lucky that’s what i like [16]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, look i’m canadian okay, self-indulgent romantic garbage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 17:39:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16497179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenstrike/pseuds/zenstrike
Summary: Keith and Lance’s first anniversary.





	but take me anywhere you like

**Author's Note:**

> i’m weak and didn’t finish it for their actual anniversary i’m so sorry klance and red
> 
> thank you to my wonderful beta colleen. our partnership has survived tall keith discourse and beyond and okay i probably only finished this because of her. i love you colleen.
> 
> holy crap is this really the 16th story alfkdjakldfja;

    

Lance opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried again: “But—it’s Halloween.”

    “Yeah,” Keith said, and he sounded too cheerful to have actually heard Lance.

    “ _Halloween_ , Keith.”

    “Yeah.”

    Lance groaned. “I bought candy.”

    “It’ll be there tomorrow.”

    “There are scary movies waiting for us!”

    “Netflix will survive the weekend.”

    “Yes,” Lance said solemnly. “But will I?”

    “Who knows.” Keith shrugged into his coat and gave Lance an infuriating, tiny smile.

    Lance made a garbled sound, like a suffering turkey. “ _I_ have to go to bed, but _you’re_ going out?”

    “I’ll be back,” Keith said, still smiling that little smile. Lance faltered in his outrage and Keith leaned in, kissing Lance quickly. “Go to bed.”

    “You can’t distract me with kisses.” Lance pulled back and scowled. “It’s only nine. On Halloween.”

    “We’re getting up early.”

    “We are not.”

    “Go to bed,” Keith said again and waved once and then—was gone.

    Lance glared at the closed door. He tapped his foot and crossed his arms and tried to squish down the vague feeling of embarrassment flipping over in his belly. “It’s nine!” he said again to no-one, to the ghost of past-Keith’s. “Ugh.”

    He turned on his heel and went into the kitchen and tore into a box of chocolates he had bought earlier. He ate three tiny chocolate bars, listened to someone talking loudly in the hallway, and checked Facebook.

    Then, he groaned, ate one more chocolate bar, and got ready for bed.

    By ten, Keith wasn’t back yet and Lance wasn’t sleeping so he rolled over and grabbed his phone. It was a little weird being alone in the apartment, rewatching _Stranger Things_ on his tiny phone screen. It helped to pull the duvet over his head and snuggle up against the mattress and talk to himself and pretend he knew what Keith and Hunk would say. Red came out long enough to eat and then squished her way back into her cave.

    He missed, somehow, Keith coming home and tromping through the apartment. Keith tugged the duvet away and Lance let out an undignified squawk of surprise, rolling away.

    “You’re not sleeping,” Keith said, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it behind him _like a heathen_.

    Lance scowled and grabbed for the duvet, pulling it tight around himself. “Where were _you_?”

    “Out.”

    “Doing _what_?”

    “It’s a surprise.”

    Lance scoffed. “Surprises are cancelled.”

    Keith shook his head and picked up Lance’s discarded phone. He tossed it unceremoniously onto Lance’s nightstand and clambered onto the bed. Lance shuffled away, pulling the duvet and a couple of pillows with him.

    “What are you doing!” Lance rolled tighter into the duvet. “Go brush your teeth or something.”

    “I’m going to sit on you until you go to sleep.”

    “You’re so weird,” Lance grumbled and tried to wiggle further away.

    Keith just shook his head and pulled at the duvet until Lance unrolled with another undignified squawk.

    “Why are you like this,” Lance groaned and pressed his face into the mattress. “Why are you torturing me.”

    “Those don’t sound like questions,” Keith said and Lance heard the laughter in his voice. It was infuriating. And soft. Or—inspired something soft and warm in Lance, somewhere between his ribs and rising up to tickle at the base of his throat. Like he had done something—anything—to make that little stir of amusement flutter around Keith’s voice; like he may have done something—anything—to make Keith smile that little, Keith-brand smile that always made Lance want to melt.

    He pressed his face against the mattress and groaned.

    “ _That_ didn’t sound like _words_.”

    Keith settled in next to him and slung an arm over Lance’s back, warm and heavy and easy.

    “You’re wearing your day-clothes in our bed.”

    “I can’t hear you.”

    Lance huffed but turned his head and there was Keith, lying close and blinking right back at him and yes, that was the smile. “I said: you’re wearing your day-clothes in our bed.” He paused. “Gross.”

    “Gross,” Keith echoed.

    “That’s what I said.”

    He was reaching for Keith before the idea had fully-formed—like instinct, maybe—tracing the line of Keith’s nose, the shape of Keith’s lips, with his fingertips, before resting his hand on Keith’s cheek. Keith’s skin was warm, and he was smiling still, with his hair tied back and his eyes bright with the light coming through their window.

    “Stop looking at me,” Lance muttered. He felt heavy, and rooted, with his hand melted to Keith’s face like some romance novel cliché and his chest still pressed to the bed so his neck and arm felt twisted and already sore.

    “Can’t help it,” Keith muttered, and Lance felt Keith’s hand twist into his shirt.

    “Sure you can.”

    “Nope. I think I’m stuck.”

    Lance smiled. He was hyper aware of his own blinking: the slow slide of his eyelids, the split-second darkness, and then seeing Keith again like there hadn’t been an interruption at all. “What were you doing?” he asked again, aiming for casual and falling so, so short.

    “It’s a secret.”

    “Secrets are cancelled, too,” Lance muttered.

    Keith huffed a laugh and Lance felt it, like sunlight, in his chest.

    And then, in a breath, Keith said: “Tell me something you like about me.” In a breath, _like_ a breath—he made it sound easy, but Lance could see (or thought he could see) a light dusting of pink on Keith’s cheeks and it made heat rise in his own.

    “What?” he said, swallowing down a bubble of nervous laughter.

    Another twist of his shirt and the small of his back felt suddenly exposed. “Tell me something you like about me.”

    Lance felt his mouth twitch. He watched Keith blink. “You’re very handsome,” he said. “You have a handsome face.”

    “Thanks,” Keith said, almost grumbled, and Lance wanted to duck his head to hide his smile but he was—stuck. Held in place by Keith’s eyes and arm and the warmth of his skin under Lance’s palm. “Tell me something else.”

    Something small but fierce prodded at the back of Lance’s mind, whispering: _don’t mess this up_.

    He tried to shush it but it poked and it prodded some more and he gave it some thought, listened to it whisper.

    “I like it when you sleep,” he said and Keith’s brow furrowed, so he barrelled on: “You get quiet and you breathe all—quiet, and slow. And I know if I move you’ll wake up so I try to stay still and I just—watch you sleep.”

    “You watch me sleep.”

    “Don’t make it sound weird,” Lance grumbled. “It’s just nice, okay. You lie down next to me and you go to sleep and I—don’t know. It’s like you’re okay with resting around me. That’s all.”

    Keith blinked.

    Lance squirmed.

    “That’s all,” Keith said.

    “Stop repeating what I say!”

    Keith blinked some more.

    And the small but fierce thing at the back of Lance’s mind had gone from poking and prodding to stabbing and he could feel panic mounting in his stomach and he wondered if Keith could feel his hand getting sweaty—

    He rolled away so quickly he almost fell off the bed.

    “You asked, okay! What do you want me to say?”

    “Lance—”

    “You’ve got a handsome face! I like your hands! Sometimes you snore and it’s really cute!”

    “I don’t snore.”

    “You do. Ask Hunk.”

    “And if I do,” Keith continued in a mutter and threw the duvet over them both. “It isn’t cute.”

    “It actually really is,” Lance grumbled and pushed a hand through his hair. He managed to resist the urge to roll into a panicked ball.

    Keith was close a moment later, keeping him from rolling off the edge of the bed, and their duvet with its dark blue cover was heavy and warm on top of them. “I didn’t mean to stress you out,” Keith said against the back of his neck.

    “I’m not stressed,” Lance grumbled. “I can say stuff to my boyfriend without stressing out.”

    Keith snuggled closer, steady and comforting against Lance’s back and his breath on Lance’s neck. “I like your hands, too,” he sighed.

    Lance tried and failed to come up with something witty to say. He held his breath, lying still, warm and safe with Keith close and Red quiet in her cave and all of them in their little home. He listened to his own `heartbeat. He stared at the shape of his own hand, hanging off the side of the bed and looking limp and alien and alien. Slowly, Keith’s breathing started to slow, still brushing like a soft touch against Lance’s neck, making goosebumps rise along his arms.

    Lance squirmed.

    Keith grunted.

    Lance huffed out a breath and then twisted, turning to burrow into Keith. Keith caught him with a laugh, his arms tight around Lance and the duvet bunched around them. Their noses bumped and Lance held his breath and then, in a rush, said: “I love you.”

    “l love you too.”

    “Are you happy?”

    “All the time,” Keith replied and kissed the corner of Lance’s mouth.

    Lance deflated with a sigh. He shuffled closer and slung a leg over Keith and listened to Keith fall asleep, still in his day-clothes in their bed.

   

***

 

    Keith’s alarm went off at four in the goddamn morning.

    “It’s four,” Lance moaned.

    “I told you to go to sleep,” Keith said, but wiggled out of the bed and left Lance.

    Lance went back to sleep.

    Keith came back with his hair wet from the shower.

    “Go away,” Lance said into a pillow.

    And Keith rubbed his wet hair against Lance’s neck until Lance pinched him and stormed to the bathroom.

    “Dress warm!” Keith called.

    Lance slammed the door.

    When he reemerged feeling marginally more awake, Keith was bustling about the kitchen and Red was not in her usual place in the bedroom. Lance scrubbed a towel over his hair and scowled at her empty spot and smelled the coffee in the air and wondered: _what the hell_.

    He trooped to the bedroom door. “What do you mean ‘dress warm’?”

    “Wear a sweater,” came Keith’s reply from the kitchen.

    Lance grimaced. He drummed his fingers against the doorframe.

    He sighed and got dressed.

    “Dress warm,” he muttered as he tugged on his pants. “If we’re going to freaking coffee farm—”

    “Hurry up,” Keith said from the doorway, startling Lance into almost—almost!—falling over. “We need to go.”

    Lance muttered something rude to his retreating back, something not worth repeating.

    Keith laughed.

    Cackled, really.

    It all made Lance very suspicious. Keith left the apartment, and then came back just as Lance was about to poke his head outside and start yelling.

    Lance wiggled his toes.

    Keith—smiled at him.

    “What’s going on?”

    “We’re going out,” Keith replied, sounding almost—cheerful.

    Lance blinked. “What—”

    Keith ushered him out the door, tugging on his sleeve and pushing at his back and saying nice things about Lance’s butt.

    And Lance went with it.

    And outside, Keith introduced him to a burgundy car. Red was strapped into the back seat, eating.

    “I rented a car,” Keith said, sounding pleased. “I went to get it last night.”

    “Right,” Lance mumbled, pressing his nose to the window and peering down at Red. “Is she safe?”

    “Probably.”

    Lance looked back at Keith, who just shrugged.

   

***

 

    Lance asked where they were going four more times and then Keith told him to go to sleep and Lance refused.

    He was asleep before they had left the city.

 

***

 

    He dreamt, a little.

    Keith, pulling him onto their bed and bells ringing in Lance’s ears.

    Keith, holding Hunk upright and both of them laughing.

    Lance himself, flat on his back in their old dorm room and watching light dance across their ceiling until Keith leaned over him and pulled a roll of paper from his coat and let it unfurl over Lance’s chest. “There’s everything I love about you,” Lance said, his voice sounding deep and strange.

    And Keith smiled, with his light in his eyes and a promise on his lips, and he said: “You can’t keep this a secret forever.”

    “I don’t want to,” Lance said, and woke up.

    “Happy anniversary,” he garbled out, or tried to, jerking up against the seat. He blinked and Keith came slowly into focus with his head tilted and that little smile making his face seem handsomely crooked.

    Lance croaked.

    Keith’s smile grew.

    They weren’t moving.

    Someone leaned into view through the driver’s side window and waved cheerily at Lance, the sleeve of their overlarge, forest green sweater flapping. “Hiya, sleepy head,” they said.

    “Hi,” Lance managed.

    “Go back to sleep,” Keith said and Lance was about to protest and then Keith put his hand on his knee and squeezed, gentle like a dream, and Lance felt himself start to sag back into sleep.

    “You two are cute,” said the person in the sweater.

    “Thanks,” Keith replied, and Lance was out again.

    He didn’t dream, but he remembered the warmth of Red in his hands as he carried her home the first time, and Keith next to him on the bus, and that first—warm—wonderful kiss.

    He woke with a start and the first thing he saw was Keith looking right at him.

    “Where are we?” Lance said, blinking quickly.

    Keith smiled. His unbuckled seat belt slipped from his hand and he leaned forward and kissed Lance’s cheek. “Banff,” he said as he pulled back. “I’ll be right back.”

    Lance processed too slowly and Keith was gone, the door slamming behind him and making Lance jump. He rubbed his eyes and squinted and watch Keith dart across the mostly empty road, barely looking up as he went and making panic wake Lance the rest of the way up.

    “Ugh,” Lance groaned, clutching his knees. He leaned back when Keith was safely crossed and dashing into a McDonald’s. “Your other father is going to kill me, Red.”

    Red responded with silence. Lance sucked in a breath and twisted in the seat to look at her. She blinked her beady black eyes up at him.

    He smiled.

    Red waddled to her food dish, hungry again.

    Lance watched her for a time and then settled back into the seat again. He leaned his head against the window and peered out at the empty sidewalks and tried to imagine the township looking more like the pictures he’d seen on Facebook or in books. It was a quiet Sunday morning: no snow, no people, no bears. Just the mountains rising up like shadows that Lance could only half see.

    Keith came back.

    “I brought food,” he said and dumped the bag in Lance’s lap.

    “And you weren’t hit by a car,” Lance mused, pulling open the bag. “I’m so impressed.”

    “Who was going to hit me?” Keith grumbled as he started the car. “There’s no one here.”

    “Speaking of which, oh mullet-of-my-life,” Lance sighed. He shoved a hashbrown towards Keith and Keith took an enormous bite. “Why are we here?”

    Keith said something that might have been “surprise.” Lance sighed and ate the rest of the hashbrown.

    They kept going. Another car occasionally passed them, headlights flashing and Lance’s ears ringing as it zipped away. Lance ate half of the second hashbrown and fed Keith the other half. Keith drank most of the huge coffee he’d bought. Red finished her breakfast (her dinner, her food) and started running on her wheel, apparently unbothered by the slight sway and shift of the car.

    “Are we there yet?” Lance said, peering out the window. He thought the sky was starting to brighten.

    “Almost,” Keith said.

    The dashboard clock said it was nearly eight.

    Keith seemed to know where he was going: he didn’t hesitate at any turn, any wind in the road. When Lance looked at him, he had that smile on his lips and that shine to his eyes. It was hard to look away from Keith when he was like this: warm, and happy, and smiling. It made Lance want to be warm, and happy, and smiling, maybe even made him think he was already warm and happy and smiling.

    He sipped at Keith’s coffee.

    “Happy anniversary,” Lance said, trying again, his voice sounding soft and caught in the noisy hum of the car. But he was clearer now.

    “Happy anniversary.”

    Lance smiled. He tucked one of his legs up and watched the dark shapes of the trees and felt the rise of the road and he started to think that all this was okay and nice and odd—

    “When I was a kid,” Keith said and then stopped with a sigh, so soft it was barely there.

    Lance held his breath. He wondered, if he stayed still enough for long enough—maybe Keith would keep talking, but instead he heard Keith sigh again and drum his fingers against the steering wheel. Lance thought he heard Red shuffling about behind them, a fluffy constant.

    “We’re doing just fine,” Keith eventually said. Lance looked at him. Keith’s jaw was set and his face slightly flushed and it was all endearing and strange. A little surreal. Keith continued: “You and me. We’re—fine. Good.”

    And there was that small but fierce thing again: _don’t mess this up_.

    And Lance thought that he wouldn’t.

    “Yeah?”

    Keith nodded. “Yeah.”

    “Okay,” Lance said and shifted to re-settle to watch Keith drive, maybe to admire the straight line of his back and the shape of his fingers and his hands. The quiet way he breathed.

    Lance knew that he could wait.

    They pulled off, finally, into a crunching parking lot. There was one other car and Lance thought he saw two people sleeping, slumped together, and the there was a path that wound into the trees but Lance thought he could see specks of dark blue sky beyond. They sat for a moment, or Keith sat and let his hands slide from the steering wheel and his shoulders slump; and Lance watched him.

    Red went back to running on her wheel.

    “She’s been our hamster for a year,” Lance said into the quiet. He smiled when Keith looked at him. “And—a year ago you kissed me on the floor.”

    Keith blinked. Lance kept smiling.

    “Yeah,” Keith replied, and smiled back.

    They got of the car and Lance bit back a protest when Keith rescued Red from the back (“She gets to see, too.”) and Keith led the way towards the little path. He carried Red in both hands and she stayed very still—she was like that—and Lance followed with what was left of their breakfast and coffee. There was something inevitably spooky about the trees and the frost on the air but Keith walked with purpose and he was easy to trust and follow. The bath opened up to a little clearing, the trees falling away behind them and what Lance thought was maybe a valley opening up in front of them: the mountains, starting to take shape and light, cutting against the brightening sky.

    “Wow.”

    “Yeah,” Keith agreed and when Lance tore his eyes away from the view he saw Keith smiling so wide that Lance was sure one or both of their faces was going to fall off.

“Come on.”

    Keith led him to a rickety bench just off the path. They sat, and Lance tugged off his scarf and they made a little nest for Red. She settled in, pleased and fat and happy and blinking her eyes at them. They ate the rest of their breakfast (sandwiches, almost too greasy to be food but so, so good) and Keith balled up the trash so small he could shove it in his pocket.

    Keith finished the coffee.

    “Keith,” Lance said. He rubbed Red’s little head with one finger. She blinked, blinked, blinked. “Did you get us up at the ass-crack of the morning so we could watch the sunrise in the mountains?

    “Yeah,” Keith replied without shame and if Lance didn’t love him already—that might have done him in.

    “I guess that’s pretty good,” Lance sniffed. “But just you wait ‘til next year.”

    Keith laughed and Lance grinned and Red started to go to sleep.

    And Lance leaned over her to kiss Keith, warm and slow and soft, just as the first streaks of orange and muted red started to warm the cool blue of the sky.

 

***

   

    (“When I was a kid,” Keith said, leaning against Lance with Red in his lap and Lance’s arm warm around him. “We were figuring stuff out and then one weekend Shiro and Adam decided we’d go camping.”

    Lance hummed. “And you watched the sunrise together.”

    “Right here.”

    Lance kissed the top of Keith’s head and whispered: “Thank you.”)

 

***

 

    (A little later, it snowed.

    Light, airy flecks of white that made it seem like the township and the park were rising up to meet the mountains.

    Maybe they should have worried about the roads going home, but they didn’t, and Lance took several sneaky photos of Keith with snow in his hair and Red in his hands.)

**Author's Note:**

> lakdsjfalkfdjaklsfdja;jfasdfasdfasd
> 
> so this is the first installment of zen’s nanowrimo2018 effort to try and finish this series aldfjkadlfkajdlfajdsfadslfjkadk
> 
> title comes from “i want you” by mø and i almost gave this another cigarettes after sex title but really that title would just be a soundclip of apocalypse anyways thank you so much for reading i hope you enjoyed the fluff


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